


Material Happiness

by diedandwenttonightvale



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ace SPN Week, Angst, Asexual Castiel, Asexual Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 06:05:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2299214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diedandwenttonightvale/pseuds/diedandwenttonightvale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas has never understood Dean's need for sex, and Dean doesn't understand Cas' lack of need.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Purple and White

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work on AO3 and also my first work for acespnweek! It's in three chapters simply because I uploaded it that way on Tumblr. Dean's a bit acephobic and biphobic as well, and Cas feels broken and is invalidated by Dean, so don't read if you're looking for a super-happy story (although it's also not all doom and gloom, either). Please enjoy!

Cas had never understood where Dean was coming from.

"You know," Dean would say, "When you just… when you just have to…" He’d make a vague gesture or raise his eyebrows, and Cas would shrug. Dean’s eyes would dim and he’d look away — search for another topic, even if it was just what they’d been hunting recently.

It was difficult for Cas to see that dimming in his friend’s eyes. He’d tried desperately to find out what Dean meant, searched all over the internet with words that tried to describe Dean’s gesture or verbatim quotes. The internet was a rather depraved place, and Cas had found what he was looking for eventually — Dean meant that he would often look at a person and want to have sex with them.

Gabriel had seemed to feel the same thing as Dean, so Cas had quickly realised that it wasn’t an ‘angel thing’, as Dean muttered on his worse days. It was a Castiel thing. And anything that could be boiled down to simply a part of Cas was inherently wrong. He’d known it for years, but this just reminded him: he wasn’t right. Half-human and half-angel — because he’d gone back and forth between the two too often now for him to be truly one or the other — he was stuck between two worlds. He’d rebelled against one, but now he didn’t fit in the other.

But he would try to fit. He started nodding when Dean made those gestures, smiling and nodding at women that looked to be Dean’s ‘type’ — sometimes he was surprised he even understood what the word meant in that context, but he brushed the thoughts off.

But his friend wasn’t happy even with this.

"What the Hell, Cas?" He asked one day, after the sort-of-angel had pointed out yet another woman.

Cas didn’t know what to say, so he just stared.

"Why do you keep pointing hot girls out to me? I can see, y’know."

Cas was at a loss; he’d been sure that this was what he was supposed to do. “I thought it was what you wanted. I thought you wanted me to participate in this part of human life.”

Dean put his head between his hands. “You stare at ‘em like they’re equations, Cas. If you don’t appreciate the female form…” He stumbled over his words. “If you, if you appreciate a different kind of form then that’s okay. You don’t have to pretend that you don’t.”

This was the moment, Cas realised, where he could tell Dean everything. He needed to share his burden with someone and his hands were sweating like only human hands did and Dean didn’t deserve to have more weight thrust upon him but this was his final chance to become whole again and—

"I don’t."

Dean gave him the side-eye. “What.”

Hundreds of different things he could say after those two words flitted through his head the way he flew when he first learnt to use his wings but he stuck to his purpose. “I don’t… appreciate either form.”

"Oh." Dean seemed unsurprised. He frowned. "This another one of those weird angel things?"

Cas shook his head. “I do not believe so.”

"Oh. What is it then?"

"I do not know."

Dean sighed. “I’ll get Sam to do a bit of research. Maybe you broke your vessel or something.”

Cas didn’t really want anyone else to know, but he nodded anyway. “Okay.”

* * *

 

Three days later, Sam calmly walked up to Cas and gave him a hug. The angel took this as a sign that Dean was right, that his vessel was irreparably damaged and he hadn’t even noticed, and stiffened.

"It’s okay, Cas." Sam smiled at him. "I found something that might explain what you’re feeling."

Cas read the wiki article with squinted eyes. This was a human thing, something built into their very cores. He — or perhaps it was his vessel, it was hard to separate the two at this point — was asexual, just as Dean was bisexual and Sam was whatever he was (Cas couldn’t tell without looking into his soul as he raised it from Hell, and he’d made a little bit of a mistake with that).

"Oh." He smiled at Sam. "This is wonderful news. You are correct, Sam; it explains how I feel perfectly. Thank you for finding this for me." He didn’t mention all the worries and doubts he had had before Sam had given him this gift of knowledge, but he saw the Winchester brother could tell.

Sam grinned and patted him on the back. “You’re welcome dude. But…” He trailed off, his smile faltering. “This might not go down well with Dean. You know what he’s like.”

Cas did. He’d heard all of Dean’s whispered prayers, knew every last ‘why’, ‘stop this from happening’ and ‘I’m not gay, please please say I’m not’. He knew that the man was just a man, and didn’t realise that who he was and who he liked were a part of his cellular make-up. And if he couldn’t recognise it in himself, he wouldn’t recognise it in Castiel.

The sex dreams wouldn’t help either. Cas sighed. He’d heard all of Dean’s prayers, but he’d also heard everything he said that was worded as a prayer, and (with the help of some porn) he’d got the gist of why Dean seemed uncomfortable when Cas materialised near him when he was sleeping. Knowing that the angel he dreamt about didn’t feel the same way as him would not help his feelings of wrongness.

And so Sam and Cas kept their discovery a secret from Dean. The secrecy bothered Cas for a while, especially when Dean asked questions about what Sam had found (nothing, Sam would say, while Cas looked perturbed). But when Sam bought Cas a little square of black, white, grey and purple fabric, the angel finally found something that helped him belong.


	2. Black

Cas should have known it wouldn’t last. The Winchester boys had a habit for keeping secrets from each other, and it had made them very good at sniffing out lies.

"What’s this?" Dean asked one day, waving a scrap of fabric at the angel.

Cas froze. He could’ve sworn he’d hidden that away, just as he did every morning. “What do you mean?”

Dean looked furious. “This was just sat on the table in the library. I asked Sam what it was, but he wouldn’t tell me. Said I should ask you. If this is some weird amulet or angel-communication device that you’ve been hiding from us, Cas, I swear—”

"It is just a piece of fabric, Dean. Nothing more or less than that."

"So, what? You been trying to choose new covers for the sofas? Because I have to say I’m not a fan of stripes."

Cas wondered whether it would be worth it to just try and tell Dean again, try to tell him that his vessel was working perfectly fine but that he just didn’t feel the same way. He’d done it once before, before he understood — it would be easy to do it again. “It’s just a piece of cloth, Dean.”

Dean frowned. “You think I’m stupid? If it was just a random piece of cloth, Sammy would have told me instead of pulling his ‘this will be unpleasant to tell you face’. Come on, just tell me.”

The angel sighed. “Sam has been lying to you about… my… my feelings towards…” How did he say it? What words were there for such a complicated situation? “My vessel is not broken. I am simply asexual.” He held his breath, an evolutionary quirk that he’d picked up from Jimmy.

"So… what? What does that mean?"

"It means I do not feel sexual attraction. This is perfectly normal and is a sexual orientation that many humans have. I do not know how widespread it is in angels, but—"

"So, you don’t want sex? That’s why you’ve always been so…" Dean shook his head and waved his hand. "Why you’re you."

"My orientation is a part of me, if that is what you are trying to say. But it is not all of me, just as yours or Sam’s or anyone else’s orientation is simply one facet of their identity. And you are right, I personally do not wish to have sex under any circumstances." Cas smiled a little; this was going much better than he’d ever expected it to.

The hunter looked hurt when he said, “So you don’t want relationships. Well, it sure makes your life easier, Cas.” He slapped the angel on the back, right between the shoulder blades — right where Dean knew it would hurt most, where his wings sprouted from his back.”Should probably still get checked out, though — if you didn’t catch something that caused it, you probably caught something off the site Sammy found it on. Some psychological shit, or something. Brainwashing.”

The angel suddenly remembered his reasons for keeping this a secret from Dean. Before, the pressure of hiding a part of himself had been so great that the dissenting ideas had been pushed to the back of his mind, but now… now he realised how wrong this could go. He wasn’t one for tact, so he side-stepped the questions and got right to the point. “There is nothing wrong with me, Dean. If you think there is, maybe you should ask yourself why you trust your brother’s research on everything but this.”

Dean laughed. “He used to think unicorns existed — I don’t see why he can’t be wrong about this. I mean, it’s pretty clear you’re not a fan of sex right now, but I think there’s probably a way of fixing that.”

Cas frowned. “There have been scientific studies—”

"Science has never found a correct explanation for you. Or demons. Or any other supernatural creature, for that matter. Science doesn’t count for shit."

"if you won’t believe it…" Cas sighed. "Will you at least accept it because it makes me happy?"

"How can knowing you’re not like the rest of the world make you happy?"

The angel smiled and took the scrap of fabric — the mini asexual flag — out of Dean’s hand. “I’ve never been like ‘the rest of the world’, but with this, I at least belong to a part of it.”


	3. Grey

Dean still didn’t believe that Cas was okay. He constantly checked on his health, but the angel stopped minding it; it seemed silly, but if this was how Dean showed that he cared? Well, Cas would take anything he could get, even if it did mean putting up with invalidation.

That is, until Dean had another one of his dreams.

Cas heard him calling out in his sleep, but was wise enough now not to go to his friend and ask what was wrong. However, his discretion didn’t seem to matter, because Dean woke up in a foul mood the next morning.

"Cas, I need you to leave."

"Have we run out of groceries again?" Cas asked, knowing that wasn’t the case but just hoping, hoping…

"I meant I need you to leave the bunker. For good." He crossed his arms over his chest. "Your weird angel mojo is sending all the angels looking for us and we need to keep this place secret."

"Oh." He tried not to seem hurt because he knew how much it would hurt Dean, but still… it made him angry. "I don’t think I am giving off any sorts of signals, Dean."

"Yeah, that’s the problem," the hunter muttered under his breath. "Just go, Cas."

"This is about the dreams, isn’t it?"

"What?"

"You want me sexually and it scares you. When I raised you from perdition, I looked into your soul. I understand." He dug a little scrap of fabric out of his pocket. He’d been holding onto it for a while now because he’d known this talk was coming. "You don’t need to be afraid." He passed the scrap of fabric to Dean, who stared at it with a set jaw.

"Dad never understood. I should never have let that stop me — should’ve learnt by now that Dad was wrong about so many things…" He trailed off. "But I still don’t think he is."

Cas smiled encouragingly. “God is indifferent to sexual orientation, Dean.”

The man wiped subtly at a tear and coughed. “Yeah, but even so, does it matter? If I can’t… if the one person…”

"I am not closed to a romantic relationship." Cas remembered that he’d never found out how much of Dean’s feelings was just sex and how much was family and how much was other. "If you are also not closed to one, of course."

"You mean you would…"

"No. But I don’t mind if you do, with other people. I wish to be with you, Dean."

The hunter looked away from his angel. “Maybe you’re right. If you are… I’m sorry for all the things I’ve said. I was a dick. But it’s just — I can’t get my head around it, Cas.”

Cas smiled. “But you will. I’ll help you.”

"And if I go back to being a dick?"

Sam poked his head into the room. “Did you ever stop?”


End file.
